1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to apparatus and methods for removing the skins and casings from meat products, and in particular, to an apparatus and methods for removing the skins and casings from cooked meat sticks such as cured cooked sticks of pepperoni.
2. Description of Related Art
Meat products producd in stick form, such as pepperoni sausages, are traditionally formed in a stuffing operation in which the sausage emulsion is stuffed into a skin or casing, such as a plastic or cellulose casing. The sausage stuffed casings may then be clipped, smoked, and further processed until the sausage is completely formed. After a sausage is formed, the casing is often removed to permit slicing of the sausage sticks for sale to consumers or institutions.
It is often desired to remove the skins and cellulose casings from stick-type meat products such as wieners, frankfurters, and pepperoni to permit repackaging or further processing of the products. Prior art solutions for this problem include slitting the skin or casing in which the meat product was cooked and then using air nozzles, steam, and vacuum to peel the encased meat from the outer casing. Removal of casings from frankfurter links and wiener links is rather straightforward, as taught, for example, in Klyce et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,295,895, because such meat products are processed to allow the captive meat sticks or kernels to float or slip inside their cellulose casings.
However, such prior art methods may be inadequate to remove the casing from larger stick-type cured meats such as pepperoni, where the curing cycle causes the casing to strongly adhere to the meat stick, thereby causing great difficulty in removing the casing from the meat stick. Additionally, while steam processing has been used to remove the skins from wieners and frankfurters, such steam processing adds expense and complexity and is often unacceptable with large stick-type meat products and cured meat products. As a result, cured meat products such as five-foot (1.5 meter) long sticks of pepperoni have traditionally been peeled by hand using a knife.
It is therefore desirable, have an automated and high-throughput apparatus and method for removing the casing from cooked meat sticks and especially from cooked cured meat sticks such as sticks of pepperoni.
The present invention is an apparatus and method for ballooning and peeling the casing of a meat stick such as cooked or cured pepperoni. Prior to peeling the casing from the meat stick, the casing may be xe2x80x9cballoonedxe2x80x9d by piercing the casing with a needle and injecting air through the needle between the casing and the meat kernel to separate the casing from the meat kernel. Grippers grip one end of the casing and hold the casing for rotation about a casing drum. The casing is split longitudinally by a knife, and, as the casing drum rotates, the casing is wound onto the casing drum and forcibly pulled from the meat stick. After the casing has been fully wound onto the casing drum and thus removed from the meat stick, the gripper and/or gripping means releases the casing and a casing ejector removes the wound casing from the casing drum. A home position detector may be used to sense when the casing drum is in the correct rotational position to have the gripper device grab the next cooked meat stick""s casing end, and a brake may slow and stop the rotation of the casing drum in a desired position, such as the home position.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for ballooning and peeling the casing of a cooked meat stick, such as cured pepperoni.
It is a further object of the present invention to peel the casing from the meat stick by providing more stripping power and force for removing the casing than heretofore possible using apparatus and methods of the prior art.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a higher-throughput automated apparatus and method for removing the casing from a cooked meat stick than heretofore possible, without requiring the use of steam to separate the casing from the meat stick.
It is yet another object of the present invention to facilitate the handling and disposal of casing waste products.